The Official Shoot the Moon Thread

Celestron wrote in post #17986877
Yeah that will work but as Roy says shoot to your likings and don't worry about what others say , right Roy ? Just kidding .... Anyway what you see in the SCT looking at the moon the overall brightness and all is what I try to project but it's extremely hard to get it correctly and still see detail and all craters . That's why I say it is so important to not just taken images if you have a scope but use it for viewing too , that way when you actually see something in space you have a better idea how to present it in an image . The best images I have ever seen are in B&W with good focus and great detail . I once saw the Orion Neb in a B&W image and was exactly how I could see it in a 32mm EP in my scope . It just left me in AWE !! Thing is the camera is what picks up color from most DSOs' . Other than stars it's extremely hard to detect any color with the eye looking through a scope at DSOs' . Keep on posting your images tho ! Your coming along well !!

Thank you. I greatly appreciate the encouragement. You make a very good point about spending time just looking at stuff up there. Most of it is hard, if not impossible to make out by eye, meaning the only time you ever truly get to observe it is through the eyepiece. And there's never enough time for that. When I look at the moon I am always in awe that I was lucky enough to be able to watch live, as human beings walked on that thing. To this day, it blows my mind.

MalVeauX wrote in post #17987445
Yeap,

My issue was I was fighting with my mount and it wasn't tracking correctly, so I had to get the shutter speed up because it was tracking, but drifting off the moon, the moon was a pot shot at the time, the shutter speed was necessary in my situation unfortunately. I recently got an Orion Sirius and I'm still learning to even use it, it was not a good option for a quick "let's shoot the moon" in the middle of the night completely unaligned and simply facing North at 28 degrees, but I wanted to fiddle with it as it wasn't raining for once.

Very best,

I've NEVER used a tracker to take photos of the moon or planets. They are all bright enough to just mount my camera on a standard tripod and shoot away. You only need a tracker for LONG exposures - of stars and nebulae, and things like that, and when shooting a series of pictures of stars and nebulae with short shutter speeds for stacking.

This image was taken with my Nikon D5200, Tamron 150-600mm lens + Kenko 1.4x TC on a standard tripod.

The exposure was 1/90 second, f:22, and ISO of 200.

I didn't do ANY post processing of this, only cropped it to eliminate the black sky around it, and reduce it to post.

Roy A. Rust wrote in post #17987520
I've NEVER used a tracker to take photos of the moon or planets. They are all bright enough to just mount my camera on a standard tripod and shoot away. You only need a tracker for LONG exposures - of stars and nebulae, and things like that, and when shooting a series of pictures of stars and nebulae with short shutter speeds for stacking.

This image was taken with my Nikon D5200, Tamron 150-600mm lens + Kenko 1.4x TC on a standard tripod.

The exposure was 1/90 second, f:22, and ISO of 200.

I didn't so ANY post processing of this, only cropped it to eliminate the black sky around it, and reduce it to post.

Heya,

Well, I will be using the tracker for the moon & eventually planets, because I will be doing video. Right now I'm learning the actual tracker. I will be using it for video of crater level stuff and mosaics. So like I said, I'm learning to even turn on the tracker at this point, as it's totally new to me compared to what I've used in the past and my first night I learned dirty alignment doesn't fly.

I've always shot the moon from a tripod, my last moon images in this thread were from a Tamron 150-600 with a 1.4x TC and a 2.0x TC stacked. Shooting the moon isn't an issue. As mentioned, my new issue is learning to do a totally different kind of approach, which is tracking at high magnification and recording video of craters. Eventually. Gotta learn my tracker first.

Repost:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Fiyt​RE

MalVeauX wrote in post #17987528
Heya,

Well, I will be using the tracker for the moon & eventually planets, because I will be doing video. Right now I'm learning the actual tracker. I will be using it for video of crater level stuff and mosaics. So like I said, I'm learning to even turn on the tracker at this point, as it's totally new to me compared to what I've used in the past and my first night I learned dirty alignment doesn't fly.

I've always shot the moon from a tripod, my last moon images in this thread were from a Tamron 150-600 with a 1.4x TC and a 2.0x TC stacked. Shooting the moon isn't an issue. As mentioned, my new issue is learning to do a totally different kind of approach, which is tracking at high magnification and recording video of craters. Eventually. Gotta learn my tracker first.

Repost:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Fiyt​RE IMG_9583 by Martin Wise, on Flickr

Very best,

Okay, now I get it.... The first time I used my iOptron Sky Tracker, it produced HORRIBLE star trails, and I double-checked the alignment a couple of times with no better results. Then I realized that the alignment scope inverts the image, and I was aligning it with Polaris 180 degrees from where it should be. Since then, I've had absolutely NO problem with tracking. Have you checked that sort of problem?

Roy A. Rust wrote in post #17987536
Okay, now I get it.... The first time I used my iOptron Sky Tracker, it produced HORRIBLE star trails, and I double-checked the alignment a couple of times with no better results. Then I realized that the alignment scope inverts the image, and I was aligning it with Polaris 180 degrees from where it should be. Since then, I've had absolutely NO problem with tracking. Have you checked that sort of problem?

Heya,

I didn't have issues with my iOptron for tracking, it has always performed great and was easy. My Sirius however is a far more complicated device than my iOptron is, my first night out, I didn't even bother with alignment, I just wanted to make sure the thing even worked before I was outside of the return/damage window, but it's just been so stormy here in Florida lately and my schedule didn't coincide with a good night for actually seeing if it will do stuff. It slew and turned and did everything fine, the lack of alignment was my fault because I literally didn't align it, didn't even put in my coordinates, just put it at 28 degrees and faced it north and turned it on and started playing with it. The moon is the only thing in the sky at the moment, or I would have just played with a few bright stars to learn the mount. Shooting the moon on a dirty non-alignment like that is what made me realize real quick that I was not using my iOptron anymore and had to learn the mount and do proper alignment, etc. So my previous moon shot was a desperate attempt to not go back in the house with zero images. Hopefully next week I will get to spend a non-rainy few hours at night with it and do a real alignment and do 3000mm and 5x Live View and do a little recording as we approach the pleasing looking moon phases later in 2~3 weeks.

Very best,

I got a Telescope, a Celestron C6 SCT and tried it on the moon early this morning.
The scope is 1500mm F10 but I used a focal reducer that dropped it down to 945mm f6.3
I learned that using a telescope like this is very different than my normal camera lenses, I tried shooting through my bedroom window so I could stay warm, it was impossible to get a sharp photo like that. I needed to take the scope outside and let it cool down and it then it worked pretty well.

Canonuser123 wrote in post #17989363
I got a Telescope, a Celestron C6 SCT and tried it on the moon early this morning.
The scope is 1500mm F10 but I used a focal reducer that dropped it down to 945mm f6.3
I learned that using a telescope like this is very different than my normal camera lenses, I tried shooting through my bedroom window so I could stay warm, it was impossible to get a sharp photo like that. I needed to take the scope outside and let it cool down and it then it worked pretty well.

Hosted photo: posted by Canonuser123 in
./showthread.php?p=179​89363&i=i143330364
forum: Astronomy & Celestial

Yowza. That is niiiiiice.

The scope was only $450 brand new, these have sure come down in price since I last looked into getting one.

Does it have a go to mount ? Very nice image of the moon . You can take alot of DSO images with that size .

Canonuser123 wrote in post #17989376
The scope was only $450 brand new, these have sure come down in price since I last looked into getting one.

That is a nice shot! The scope was $450.... good price but what about a tripod? Ya can't hand hold a scope <grin>

Celestron wrote in post #17989387
Does it have a go to mount ? Very nice image of the moon . You can take alot of DSO images with that size .

i just got the bare scope, it would have been $799 with a GOTO mount, I decided I would wait and look for a good deal on a heavy duty G.E.M. mount sometime in the future.

Inspeqtor wrote in post #17989391
That is a nice shot! The scope was $450.... good price but what about a tripod? Ya can't hand hold a scope <grin>

Thanks, I mounted a 100mm arca swiss plate to the Dovetail and am using it with a tripod, my Sirui K40X ballhead has no trouble at all with the weight of the scope.
This is a temporary solution until I decide on what mount I want.

Canonuser123 wrote in post #17989407

Inspeqtor wrote in post #17989391
That is a nice shot! The scope was $450.... good price but what about a tripod? Ya can't hand hold a scope <grin>

Thanks, I mounted a 100mm arca swiss plate to the Dovetail and am using it with a tripod, my Sirui K40X ballhead has no trouble at all with the weight of the scope.
This is a temporary solution until I decide on what mount I want.

Thank you

The lowest price at Amazon for my scope is now $599, the seller I bought from must have run out.
This is the on I got. http://www.amazon.com …ywords=celestro​n+6%22+sct

This is the other option I considered. http://www.amazon.com …orion+6%22+ritc​hey-+scope

The Orion lacked a finder scope and the eyepiece.

Canonuser123 wrote in post #17989396
i just got the bare scope, it would have been $799 with a GOTO mount, I decided I would wait and look for a good deal on a heavy duty G.E.M. mount sometime in the future.

Wow , for $350.00 more I would have found a way to buy with mount . That Go-To mount alone is $719.00 . Would be worth it to get the combo . However Celestron makes a tripod heavyduty made especially for smaller scopes for $99.00 . Something to consider if your not going with a Go-To mount of some kind . You'll have to have one if your planning on DSO images .

http://www.celestron.c​om …d,-heavy-duty-alt-azimuth